Main menu

Woman Arrested For Letting Child Be Sexually Assaulted

A Pennsylvania woman has been arrested on charges of child endangerment after letting a known sex offender abuse her child for almost a year.

Mother Marion Keithline was in a relationship with registered sex offender Eric Popejoy, and allowed him to sexually abuse her young daughter from June 2015 to July 2016. WGHP reports that the child says she was raped, but nobody would help her.

Popejoy was arrested in February on charges of child rape. Court documents show that Popejoy and Keithline also commonly used Craigslist to find new sex partners, and the couple would host orgies at their house while the child was present.

"Almost every night there was a different vehicle there and half the time she didn't come home," said Keithline's landlord, Darryl Benedict.

Benedict says that he often took care of the child, as she would commonly be left at home by herself. He did not indicate if he knew the extent of the abuse going on.

"She was alone a lot," he said. "We took her to church on Wednesday nights with us so she could get a little more group and a little more education on that behalf, and she was over here a lot of afternoons and spent time with my wife because she was not taken care of over there."

He added that he's relieved Keithline is finally behind bars and noted that she was a bad tenant who had to be evicted.

"My thoughts are she got what she deserved. She's been nothing but a pain in the butt for me. We just had her evicted recently because of not paying her rent and all other kinds of circumstances that have been going on and it's a blessing that we finally got her out of here."

Neighbors say that once they found out Popejoy was a registered sex offender, they kept their kids much closer than before.

"We watched the kids like crazy, didn't let them outside to play by themselves," said Haraschak. "It was hard. It was really hard. My grandkids are here all the time."

According to WNEP, Keithline was arrested on charges of endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, and reckless endangerment. She is in jail on a $15,000 bond. Popejoy is also behind bars, but his bond $1 million.